


It Waits

by vigilant



Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, M/M, Nighttime Regret, Not Really Happy at All, Wrote This Because I Felt Like Ass, vent - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 16:14:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21102314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vigilant/pseuds/vigilant
Summary: It's not until Yuri lays down at night that it rears its ugly head.





	It Waits

**Author's Note:**

> jumbled ventfic i just kind of wrote off the top of my head

It isn’t as often as it used to be, but it’s still there.

It waits, lingering beneath the surface, as if seeking out a moment of weakness. He could be sick, bone-tired after a guild job, freshly angry from an argument, or even just idly sitting during a rainy day, and it decides to take its chance.

Most often, it’s at night, when he can’t sleep, feeling blond hair tickling his collar bone as his gray eyes sit open, half-lidded, muted. Every mistake he may have made, every death that may have been caused from being ‘just a day’ too late, every consequence that has come from his actions.

Yuri Lowell lives as a brazen, wild man, no shame on his tongue and no hesitation in the swing of his sword, but it still clings to even a soul as free as his, leeching off of what he wants to call his carefree attitude.

But he does care.

It’s a facade he’s carried for years now. Growing up as nothing more than a street-rat from the Lower Quarter, he’d always known to act as though no one were watching - for people like him, it was a lifestyle.  
Perhaps it was never appearances or attitudes that made him hesitate, but the choices he made down the long, spiraling path of his life that made it so powerful when it struck.

Would a less reckless Yuri have brought less trouble for the Lower Quarter in the first place? Would conditions have bettered, had his sour mouth and antagonistic actions been dialed back? Would he have let less damage inflict innocent people if he’d taken Ragou out the first chance he’d had?

Petty, stupid little thoughts that made a level-headed Yuri scoff and brush them away nagged at his brain when he was at his lowest like this, questioning every breath he made.  
But then, thoughts that he forced down would surface, too. It, after all, had to make sure he suffered well and good before he could return to his usual, smirking self.

If only he’d kept a closer eye on the old man when they were still getting to know him, Estelle surely wouldn’t have been taken by Alexei. She wouldn’t have had to suffer so much. He wouldn’t have had to see the desperation in her eyes as she pleaded, “_kill me.” _  
Even now, he knew the experience had shaken her. She, even countless months later, still had lingering discomforts around Raven, despite his severed ties to Alexei - a captor who was now dead. The intensity of his torture upon her, too, scarred her – only Yuri could see the strained way she smiled sometimes.

A stupid, careless overlook from Yuri, and now Estelle still suffered the repercussions. 

How many people, as well, had died now from the lack of barrier blastia? It was over a year now, maybe two, and there was still no finesse in the way that people defended their towns from the monster hordes. Yuri didn’t hide the anger he felt when he’d hear how many innocent people had died in the jaws of beasts that should have been blocked from ever touching them, but he certainly had to hold back his worming little thoughts, the fingers of blame pushing into his back so tightly at night.

_It’s your fault, _they whispered to him, tightening his throat with misery. Had they overlooked a better solution? Were they in such a rush to exterminate the Adephagos that, in lieu of dying to it, they were willing to sacrifice thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people in the coming years to be nothing more than fodder?

_How many people have I killed? _There was no dark satisfaction, cruel reasoning, justification, anything, in the way that he killed people now. Their deaths were unnecessary, nothing like the two lives he’d taken for the sake of protecting. He was a hypocrite, sure enough. And yet, he had the audacity to sleep in a bed softer than anything he’d slept on in his life, while people were struggling to keep their homes, their land, things they’d had for years before his actions had stolen it all away.

“Why are you still awake?” Flynn’s voice, groggy and low, snaps him out of his haze. He doesn’t move much, lets Flynn instead, watching as the blond lifts his head to peer down with sleep-dazed eyes.

“Don’t you have to be up early? Go back to sleep,” he replies, shifting. “You’re like an oven. Sleep on your side of the bed, and maybe I won’t be roasting alive.”

It doesn’t deter Flynn, who is watching him with eyes that practically see through him.  
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, his voice soft.

“What are you talking about?” Playing dumb is all he knows how to do. He’d be selfish to ask for help; he deserves to feel like shit, for all he’s done.

“Yuri…” Flynn shifts, as if he’s about to give up. “Do you think keeping everything to yourself will make it better?” He sounds frustrated, but not angry.

Briefly, Yuri’s mind flits to an angry Karol, yelling at him for trying to shoulder everything alone. _But this is different._ He remains silent, watching Flynn as he mulls over what bullshit he can say to make him go back to sleep.

However, Flynn finally gives up, frowning softly before he rests his head on Yuri once more.

The room is silent for a while, and he waits for the familiar sound of Flynn’s even, slowed breathing before he lets out a breath.

His question is to no one in particular, hollow and defeated, alone.

“Have I done anything right?”


End file.
